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MrSeb writes "Today Samsung joined Nikon in announcing an Android-powered camera. The Samsung Galaxy Camera weighs 305g, features a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, 21x super zoom lens, a quad-core 1.4GHz SoC (probably Exynos 4), 8GB of internal storage, and runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. This compares with the Nikon S800c which also has a 16MP CMOS sensor, along with a 7x zoom f/2 lens and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Since neither unit has shipped, we don't know anything yet about how good they are as cameras, but we do know that the companies are trying to regain some of the ground they've lost to smartphones by integrating sharing right into their cameras. For photographers, there are a couple of critical questions about these new models: First is whether these cameras will have enough additional functionality to justify the added cost and weight when most people already have a serviceable camera in their phone. Second, and more importantly, there is still a big question mark hanging over Nikon and Samsung's long-term intentions for Android. If Android cameras are just standard point-and-shoots with a smartphone OS bolted on for sharing, that'll be a wasted opportunity. It would have been easier to create a camera that instantly tethered to a smartphone instead, and let the phone do all the work. There is an exciting possibility, if Nikon and Samsung do this correctly and allow low-level access to the camera functions via Android, to really unleash the power of Android to enable new photographic solutions."
Samsung has also taken the wraps off the ATIV S, the first smartphone running Windows Phone 8. It has a 4.8" screen, NFC support, and a microSD card slot. Samsung plans to start shipping them in Q4.

Why? I don't really understand why people want their cameras to be general purpose computers to start with. I guess the snapshot set like to be able to post things online right away, but a camera that tethers to your phone, as the summary suggests, seems a better solution for that. But why would I want my DSLR to run Android?

The point of the physical controls that they all have is that you don't want to be looking away from the subject for any reason other than moving around. And even that you wouldn't want to do if you could do so safely. Touchscreens are crap for anybody that needs to get things done without looking at the screen.

Not to mention the fact that now you have a screen that's taken up with widgets rather than with the actual image. Or worse that burns through your battery life much quicker than a traditional interf

Cameras aren't general purpose devices, why would they need a general purpose OS? Buttons and knobs make for easy and fast adjustments without having to look at the camera. As soon as you have to take your eyes off the subject/out of the view finder you have negated any of the advantages that android could bring to a DSLR/Mirrorless camera. Keep the gimicky stuff in the phones and point and shoots.

I understand that moms and pops buy DSLRs, but for their primary audience this is a bad thing. It's a feature that the more expensive cameras have more buttons. I started out an ameteur, and the 2 reasons I chose a canon 60d over a canon 550d were the size (the 60d is bigger, fits better in your hand) and that it had an extra wheel and about 5 more buttons.

Buttons/sliders I need to have available without looking:-ISO-focus (seperate from taking photo)-meter/take photo-choose focus point quickly-choose full autofocus quickly (so seperate from choosing a single point)-aperture-shutter-metering mode

- Easier ways to change settings that aren't changed frequently but are now buried in crazy hierarchical menus.- Time lapse photography (most DSLRs require an Intervalometer)- More complex control over slave flashes

I agree with all 3 of these 100%. It could also possibly give the ability for "better" or more customisable in-viewfinder UIs.

If you are a serious shooter then you know that there are tons of things buried in menus already that you have to take your eye away from the viewfinder from to use. I am not talking about getting rid of everything - just making the stuff that is already menu based easier to use.

Not for DSLRs, no. You often want to watch the subject and change settings at the same time, in order to catch the perfect moment. Buttons and knobs with mechanical feedback let the experienced photographer change and set things by touch, without having to look at the camera. Taking the camera away from your eye to navigate menus or find the right small icon on the small screen would be a huge distraction.

This. Canon PowerShot hackers have developed a replacement firmware [wikia.com] to provide the user more tools than the standard firmware - scripting, access to RAW files, and so on. It is, however, still a hack, so things like power management take a hit.

Well like I said - the stuff that you are changing constantly - like aperture and shutter speed - you need to have the same controls for. And maybe even still basic functionality in the existing buttons but more advanced in the touchscreen. I mean as somebody who loves playing with HDR I would love more complex and flexible bracketing options without having to do anything but click my cable release because every time I have to touch the camera again there is a risk of movement.

What I'd like on my cameras is a low-level slave mode: it could still work with cameras if one was set as the master and others became the slaves -- you could use all their sensors for 3-D lighting analysis and distance/depth analysis, as well as true HDR, panoramics, and time-synching video. with spatial awareness.

I don't want my camera to become the editing and publishing tool (really... those features in prosumer models are just more junk I have to wade through to adjust my settings and take my shot; I'd

I agree on the editing right now but what if Nik decides to start developing Silver Efex for droid or Photomatix puts HDRPro on there. Right now the editing tools suck because they are put there by Nikon or Canon. With an Android OS you have a world of top notch developers adding new functionality.

I agree on the editing right now but what if Nik decides to start developing Silver Efex for droid or Photomatix puts HDRPro on there. Right now the editing tools suck because they are put there by Nikon or Canon. With an Android OS you have a world of top notch developers adding new functionality.

The editing tools suck because you're editing in variable light on a tiny screen. Having powerful software isn't going to fix this.

Although I guess it would be neat to create a few intelligent post-process templates on your computer and upload them to your camera to selectively apply.

Now... if the Nikon and Canon devices started running Android with a high-definition touch screen and had a viewing hood, third-party lightroom software might start to look desirable, as well as support for the other features

Because the software is usually shitty: you're buying the phone for the hardware. I have a sony DSLT that I love, except for one thing. Exposure bracketing is limited to 0.7 EV. It will take pictures over a wider range of exposures, the problem is that it will only do that for automatic HDR, and will not save the pictures it took. Those HDR images are automatic, and always look shitty. I want to save the three bracketed pictures over a wider range and use the software on my computer to get a good contr

Yes, the software on many cameras isn't great, but the solution to that isn't making the thing a general purpose computer. Compared to the OS a camera needs to run Android is big, complicated and requires a lot of expensive hardware. You don't cram all that into a camera just to fix a few UI issues.

The ideal solution would be if the camera manufacturers put a lot of time, effort, and money into developing their software, yes, but that doesn't seem likely to happen. Moreover, none of us have any control over that.

I have the eye-fi card and never use it. Far too slow to be of real benefit during a shoot. If the demo you saw did it straight away they were likely shooting at some unbearably low resolution. Makes much more sense to shoot tethered.

I also own an Eye-Fi card that is installed inside a DSLR. I have it paired with my iPhone, and it sends a photo I take with the camera to the phone about 5 seconds after it is taken. I do agree that it is tad slow, but this direct camera-phone connection is pretty useful for me. It has effectively made my DSLR an iPhone accessory, so to speak, and I am able to upload high quality photos to Internet almost immediately.

Incidentally, I have never had any need for the card's ability to do automatic uploading

Photographers are like guitarists. They are stuck with 60 year old technology because that's what they are used to, and because the kinks and failures on that old tech (vacuum tube distortion, lens flares, etc.) are so ingrained in our culture that new tech has to imitate them in order to satisfy the artist.

...whether these cameras will have enough additional functionality to justify the added cost and weight when most people already have a serviceable camera in their phone...

Yeah, if you only want to take quick snapshots and you don't care about the quality, any phone camera will do. But even among phones, camera quality varies.

For a long time, I carried a Motorola Droid X with an 8 MP camera. I didn't buy it for the camera, but having the camera made me fall into the habit of taking pictures whenever I saw something interesting. (I'm a serious pedestrian living in a town with a lot of interesting architecture and views.) The results were pretty cool [bit.ly].

Then I had to replace the phone with a Motorola Triumph with a 5 MP camera. Picture quality suffered. Wouldn't have mattered so much to me if the previous camera hadn't introduced me to the joys of casual photography. When I have the time and money, I will certainly buy a more serious camera and take some classes.

Will that camera be Android-powered? The way the article goes at it (is there enough added functionality?) is exactly backwards. It assumes you live in an Android-powered world and are looking for the best way to integrate your picture-taking into it. For my part, I'll look at all low-end cameras, Android or not, and see which has the physical and electronic features that will work for me.

I suspect that Android is overkill for a dedicated camera and that one of those special purpose, nameless OSs that most cameras come with will suit me better. But I'm withholding judgment until the time comes.

I'm not seeing them. Perhaps you're mistaking other compacts for VWs? Portlanders do tend to drive those. Part of it is our proverbial greenness, but also the narrow streets in the older neighborhoods are a pain to drive a big car through.

All of which applies only to the part of PDX west of Oregon Route 213. East of it is technically the same city, but things are more car-centric. Naturally, there's a big cultural gap, with them viewing us as airheaded treehugging socialists, and us viewing them as knuckle-

For my part, I'll look at all low-end cameras, Android or not, and see which has the physical and electronic features that will work for me.

i think that misses the point. why did you end us using your phone-based camera so much? part of it is that it's always with you, but the other big factor is that you get all of the photo-based utilities available to android... whether it be online storage, sharing to facebook, or photo manipulation, auto upload, and so on.

And I think you missed my, or maybe just didn't read far enough. If I'm going to spend hundreds of dollars on a dedicated camera instead of getting by on my phone camera, I must be a serious photography. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I can't see serious photographers working with the simple-minded photo software that runs on mobile devices.

The "smell this" pointed to some really nice flowers, which east-side PDX has in abundance during spring. Sorry, no dog poop, the yuppies in my neighborhood are uptight about such things. As am I, come to think of it.

Having the camera integrated into the phone has made me more likely to take snapshots of things. But, I still carry a camera when I am planning on taking pictures. My camera takes better pictures than does my phone.

I do not care what OS runs on my phone, as long as it is a good phone. I have found some neat things to do with my Android phone (terminal, web browsing, taking pictures, echolocation, games, etc.) but I need it to be a good phone.

If the non-phone features of your phone are that unimportant, why not carry a feature phone and save money? But all those apps are important, or you wouldn't bother. And in that case you should care about what OS you use, since that determines which developer/user ecosystem you participate in.

And if you honestly don't care about that, then why don't you have an iPhone? They do have many technical and usability advantages. I can say that without being accused of being an Apple fanboy, since the ecosystem iss

The phone is primarily a phone, the camera is primarily a camera. The other shit is not important... they are toys. Why do I bother? I like to play with toys. I am a tech-geek after all.

I do not use iShit for personal reasons -I am related to one of the executives who decided he did not want relatives working there for fear of us reflecting poorly on his shining godliness. So. I am biased. The tech is good, but I choose not to use it.

I openly admit my choice of non-Apple products for my personal use is based on feelings for a relative of mine and not on a technical reason (and really has nothing at all to do with Apple, the company).

It in no way invalidates my opinion that the OS choice for a camera is not nearly as important as is its' functionality as a camera, but that there may be some neat features that can result from said OS choice.

Canon's special purpose, nameless OS now includes WiFi support on certain camera models, like the ELPH 320HS. It incorporates the ability to connect to a PC/Smartphone/Tablet, and upload your shots directly to their servers, while automatically cross posting it to facebook or other social sites.

That said, Canon made it work, but nobody said it would be easy. You practically need a degree in wireless network engineering to set it all up - if you want to experience marital disharmony, try explaining the dif

Right you are. That's the issue that I should have thought of: you need new functionality that hard to engineer into a embedded OS. So even though it's overkill, you end up embedding a complete PC or smartphone in your device. I've actually seen it happen before.

That will be the main selling point of Android-based cameras: the networking Just Works. If you don't want to use it to play Angry Birds, nobody's making you.

You're assuming that this device is intended to (probably unsuccessfully) take market share away from camera phones. More likely, it is intended to take market share away from other (non-phone) cameras by adding functionality that they lack. For example, if the camera has a GPS it may be able to display a map with your photos organized by where they were shot, similar to turning on the "photos" option in Google maps. Such functionality would presumably be much easier to add as an app on top of Android ra

They're losing ground to camera phones - so they apparently came to the conclusion the reason for that is the OS that's on some of those phones?

A different take is that they realized people like to take photos with smartphones because of the large choice ot applications you have to take the photos. Some apps do filters, some do panoramics, some do selective coloring, etc.

When you can do all that right as you are taking an image, who wants a boring old camera where you do that later?

I think it's about as good idea as can be had to revive the concept of a separate compact camera, which otherwise will be totally subsumed by smartphones in short order.

What would be really interesting, is a DSLR that you could program in this way... You could even have the normal camera control software just as one app, but allow people to write others. As long as other apps could take input from all controls on the camera you could get some great alternate takes on control software for a DSLR.

Or they realized that people like to take photos with smartphones because they're already always carrying a smartphone. Adding these apps to high end cameras isn't going to suddenly convince your average Joes to go out and buy expensive, bulky cameras en masse.

I think the realization has become, "Hey, we have a device here with a screen and a processor. We already have the capability to run a more fully-featured embedded OS. Why maintain our own OS when we could just concentrate on our own interface on t

They're losing ground to camera phones - so they apparently came to the conclusion the reason for that is the OS that's on some of those phones?

A different take is that they realized people like to take photos with smartphones because of the large choice ot applications you have to take the photos. Some apps do filters, some do panoramics, some do selective coloring, etc.

When you can do all that right as you are taking an image, who wants a boring old camera where you do that later?

I think it's about as good idea as can be had to revive the concept of a separate compact camera, which otherwise will be totally subsumed by smartphones in short order.

What would be really interesting, is a DSLR that you could program in this way... You could even have the normal camera control software just as one app, but allow people to write others. As long as other apps could take input from all controls on the camera you could get some great alternate takes on control software for a DSLR.

more likely they realised that as DSLR's got more and more complex it gets increasingly expensive and time consuming to maintain a custom written OS/firmware. People don't use smart phones for photography because of the apps, they use them because they are convenient and on hand. The best camera is always the one you have with you and for most people that will never be a DSLR regardless of OS or applications.

On the topic of the SD card for the ATIV S, is it going to still be non-removable [slashdot.org]? There was a bunch of tooth-gnashing here on Slashdot over that for WP7, but I suspect Microsoft doesn't figure the general public cares (or understands) it well enough to make them change it for WP8.

I just skimmed the article, and it doesn't even really say if the ATIV S has an SD slot, just that WP8 allows for one. If I were new here I might wonder how that got into the summary...

No, WP8 has full externally accessible SD support. It's not confirmed yet, but the language used at the developer's conference implies WP8 will have mass storage support as well for the SD card, with the ability to transfer files from phone to phone or phone to PC (or vice versa).

What this enables that’s different than what Windows Phone 7.5 has today is that an end user can add a micro SD card months after they buy the phone expanding their storage and then they can use it to transfer contents between their PC to their phone, from phone to phone, it can be used a distribution vehicle for apps and it supports all of things in a very natural, integrated way in the Metro experience.

Think of this - an Android based camera, that had way more RAM than a smart phone so that image editing applications had a lot of headroom to play with, and an additional SDK with extra hooks into the camera controls.

You could do apps with custom capture abilities (based on time interval, or accelerometer changes). You could do apps that could slide into the image pipeline to do corrections to the image based on camera movement.

It might provide enough reason for a person to buy a standalone camera again, a

I can't believe how terrible the mainstream coverage is of the current smartphone news. Why is no one analyzing the real technological battle being waged and the apparent winner, Qualcomm.

Half of the summaries of the announcement simply say that the Ativ S is "dual core," as opposed to I suppose "quad core." What does that mean? I instantly thought, are they using the Qualcomm processor, perhaps even the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4? But then I also knew that since it was a Windows Phone, there is quite the chance it has to be Qualcomm, the one maker Microsoft currently supports.

For this generation of phones, not only is Qualcomm making many of the baseband chips, certainly those for LTE multimode, but they're also successfully selling the entire SoC even in European markets? For Android, Samsung has already had to produce different phones same model Galaxy SIII, one for the US with Qualcomm processors, one elsewhere with its presumably preferred own ARM processor.

Articles such as
http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2009/02/nokia-st-ericsson-qualcomm-broadcombye-bye-texas-instrument-and-hello-to-the-new-nokia/ [visionmobile.com]
claim that in the previous generation "Nokia was designing the core chipset and letting Texas Instruments finish the integration and physically produce the chips: Nokia has been mastering the whole hardware IP of its phones, and has not been relying on generic chipsets for the vast majority of its production, with all the margins this implies..." Qualcomm and Nokia settled their lawsuit in July 2008, but look what has happened since then. Now it is Nokia that for the Lumias and presumably for their next generation Windows Phones are having to rely on Qualcomm processors and chipsets.

The mainstream press for some reason has missed the single biggest IP story the past decade, one that has destroyed at least one major company Nokia and has established another Qualcomm as a re-emerging hegemon on a world-wide scale. It should be obvious that if one tries to predict the future, the Chinese at least are not likely to meekly accept a Qualcomm monopoly without somehow getting their own capacity to export similar technology, which then leads one to read about China's TD-LTE ongoing effort, and other companies trying to partner with the Chinese in one last stand against Qualcomm.

There's a lot more going on in mobile IP struggles than what is happening with a certain company with a fruit in its name.

I'm glad to see your comment already at +5 - it's spot on, couldn't have written it better. Qualcomm is the achilles heel for Nokia, and making a change to any other chipset vendor will be really hard. The ramp down of Nokia's production of own chipsets produced by TI is by the way another severely limiting factor for Nokia to continue to deliver any Symbian based devices (not that there would be a big market for them now).

Nokia's failed chipset strategy during the last five years is monumental, and deadly

Every time I google I find another interesting story that was lost in regular news:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/02/fujitsu_nec_docomo_mobile_chip_venture/ [theregister.co.uk]
At the start of this year it was supposed to be Samsung, Docomo, Fujitsu, NEC, and Panasonic in alliance to develop an LTE alternative chipset to Qualcomm. Then only a few months later that alliance fell apart. Now beginning in August Fujitsu, NEC, and Docomo are allying by themselves to form a new joint venture.

Looking through the apps on the screen, you've got (in order of appearance):

Contacts

Messaging

Photo Wizard

Video widzard" (WTF is a widzard?)

Gallery

Camera (Oh look! It takes pictures too! Neat! Why isn't this first on the list?)

Instagram

Music

Videos

Clock

Calculator

S Planner (I often thought this would be a useful feature in a camera so I could plan my day around developing photos... not much use for it now, though)

Memo

S Voice

Dropbox

My Files

Samsung Apps

Play Store

Settings

Usability FAIL. It looks like you've got two competing app stores on your camera (Google's and Samsung's), and how are you going to find your files (is it in my files? gallery? dropbox? Oh, wait, maybe they're in camera?)? It never ceases to amaze me that huge corporations spend all this money developing and releasing these products and it's like no one ever bothered to pick it up and try to use it first. They work so hard to copy Apple, and they can't even do that properly.

I have a Samsung home theater system with an "iPod Dock" that disables the iPod interface and starts playing the first song on the device in alphabetical order. To choose another song, you have to hit the >> button, wait two seconds for it to load and then a few more seconds to figure out if it's something you want to listen to. With over 2,000 songs, it takes about 15 minutes to find a song on-demand.

I have a Samsung TV that doesn't come with a printed manual. Users are expected to read it on the TV, yet the manual includes a troubleshooting section devoted to "The TV will not turn on." If you can't get the TV to turn on, you can't read the manual. I guess they expect you'll go back to the store and read the manual on the floor model to get your TV to turn on. Or you figure out that they have a very nice PDF file on their Web site.

All right, instant sharing from the phone or the camera can be practical. I can see a few uses of it, for party pictures or for lucky shots of your favorite movie star. Still, I can't help but think this is a niche for a digital camera, because it does not really fit in what I see as usual workflow with this device.
Notice that it is rather the same for DSLRs or point and shoots, for semi-pro photographers or families on holidays:
1- Take your camera
2- Go to an interesting place
3- Take many pictures (ofte

Yeah, they call this one the Samsung Galaxy Fuck You Apple. And, of course, Apple is already preparing a lawsuit over the concept of, as Tim Cook put it in his response to the news, "it's... um... pictures... on a device. Yeah, pictures on a device. There's some patent or something we own on that, I'm sure", and bribing a patent-holder to shill for them at the trial from the jury box.

I would buy a "Samsung Galaxy Fuck You Apple". Not sure what it is or what it costs, but I'm pretty sure I need at least two of them. Are the specs going to be better than the "Google Nexus Fuck You Apple" or the "HTC Retribution Fuck You Apple"?

But it also seems like they're missing the point. OK, so actual photographers need better optics than you find in the typical phone. So why don't they just make a phone designed for photographers, which includes a camera with better optics and a more professional photography UI?

Or to put it a different way, this interesting product is conspicuously missing the ability to make cellular voice calls for no apparent reason.

Just last night I was stuck between taking a picture on my DSLR--archival quality, creamy bokeh, tack-sharp foreground, superb color saturation etc.--and having to walk up stairs, plug it into my computer, process the RAW file, and upload it versus snapping picture on my Android phone--blurry, washed out colors, throwaway quality, near-infinite depth of field, etc.--and having it pop up on the Internet almost instantly. So Nikon and Samsung are definitely on to something here, except that there is no way I would consider buying a PAS camera with Android built in because it is the worst of both worlds. Sure, you get more megapixels, but the effective f-stop is still f/55, the colors are less washed out, but still nowhere near a decent DSLR, you can't use a bounce flash, and you still have to drag around another brick in addition to your phone (assuming you use your phone to make phone calls). Plus you still need WiFi to upload the pictures. I think this Android/camera is a nice upgrade path for people who use PAS cameras because it eliminates the PC from the equation, but it is certainly no more interesting to actual photographers than any other PAS on the market. Modern (Nikon) DSLRs can be controlled from a PC via a USB tether. Just let me tether my DSLR to my Android phone. I can shoot RAW+JPEG, use the (fantastic) post-processing in the camera, upload the JPEG for instant-gratification and keep the RAW for later; problem solved.

I think it simply is what it is: An effort to make cameras smarter and connected using an open operating system, not an end game. This is, after all, the first device of this class -- don't try to read too much into it.

I fully expect, if this thing is not entirely shunned from the get-go, to see proper DSLR hardware appear with similar Android touchscreen functionality in the near future.

DSLR Controller does a lot of this already for an Android phone or tablet plugged in via USB to a Canon EOS Camera. Canon do have a WiFi attachment which serves the pictures as files (I guess, like Nikon) but at $1K+, it is far from cheap.

I had a Samsung W850 on my short list a few weeks ago. I almost bought it but went with a Panasonic TZ30 instead (no WiFi) which had slightly superior optics and an easier to use GUI.The W850 has GPS and WiFi and very similar specs to what you quoted. The Sony H30v also has WiFi etc and there's a few other travel cams out there with similar specs. To me, the android version of this phone would be nice to have except for the biggest downfall being poor battery life.The current models of top end travel cams c

The camera comes equipped with WiFi, and 3G or 4G cellular optional. Nice. An app that allows direct uploading from the camera to flickr or dropbox will be a great feature, especially against those authority figures who would wish to delete your photos when they don't like you taking pictures in public areas.

Yes, but automatic upload means that your credentials are stored on the camera... so if instead of destroying it they grab the credentials and use them to access and wipe/close your account, including all the stuff that has nothing to do with the current event, well, it seems to me that'd be even worse.

Yes, but automatic upload means that your credentials are stored on the camera... so if instead of destroying it they grab the credentials and use them to access and wipe/close your account

Unless you create a sub-account that can only add photos to your main account, not delete anything. The credentials for your main account stay on your main device, usually a PC. Compare to banks: you need stronger authentication to withdraw money than to deposit money.

It might well be quite a bit cheaper to produce a phone-less camera - albeit with 3G connectivity - than one which includes traditional voice service...

Of course this being Android, it would not surprise me if you could just add Phone.apk and TelephonyProvider.apk to get a working phonecamera... It already has a microphone and a speaker after all. No earpiece though so you'll always be on speakerphone...

Or bluetooth perhaps.
One of the reviews said it did 3g for data, so if bluetooth is supported, paired up, use GrooveIP over the 3g connection, and you've got a phone!.
Would prefer a regular samsung phone with that lens (or a camera with a real phone).

You think the iPod has bad analog audio, listen to the of a Droid III some time. The noise floor is so high it's absolutely unusable at low volumes. I had to switch to BlueTooth just to be able to use the thing at night at reasonable volumes.